Anzaldua Taught Me So by Chloe

Anzaldua Taught Me So by Chloe - October 2021 Scholarship Essay

There is this strange sociological influence that invokes a certain status around being a multilinguist. For those that come from a wealthy background, it is a bragging right to be able to speak multiple languages. It adds to their perceived influence and intelligence. For people who don’t come from a wealthy background, particularly an immigrant background, or who speak a second language at home, that second language is dirty. It is improper, it is frowned upon, and it is policed until the multilinguist feels they must hide their knowledge of that language. However, that language also acts as a stamp of validity. This person decidedly has the right to belong to and identify with this ethnicity or this culture, supported by the fact that they have knowledge of a language. In turn, my not being able to speak Spanish had consumed me entirely, almost as if my validity as a Chicana is questioned completely.
One of the biggest things I’ve grappled with is not being able to speak Spanish. I told myself that if I knew Spanish I might feel more comfortable in my Chicano identity. It is a selfish wish because there is an immense amount of privilege that comes along with not sounding Latino (if it's even possible to sound Latino). But, then there’s part of me missing, hidden. Perhaps I don’t want the validity of my ethnicity questioned, so if something on the outside matched, it might make it easier to feel like I belonged. However, Gloria Anzaldua validates my entire identity in just two sentences. “There is no one Chicano language just as there is no one Chicano experience. A monolingual Chicana whose first language is English or Spanish is just as much a Chicana as one who speaks several variants of Spanish.”
Gloria Anzaldua taught me that not all Chicanos have to look the same, act the same, or speak the same language to be Chicano. Chicanos are all united by culture and appreciation of that culture. We are linguistically diverse & regionally diverse, but we all reside under that title of Chicano. It would be unwise to classify someone as more Chicano or less Chicano than others. It would be unwise to accredit the Chicano identity with only a language. It would be unwise to treat Chicano culture as one-dimensional when it is intrinsically multi-faceted.
Anzaldua herself struggled to understand her identity and once said that sometimes she felt like the Angloness and the Mexicaness didn’t add to create a synthesis of both cultures, but rather negated each other and made her feel as if her culture was nothing. To that I say, we are not nothing. We’re everything, all of it. We’re all the Anglo-American we want to be and all the Mexican we want to be.
I used to call my dad’s side of the family my Mexican family, so people would know the stark contrast in my blood. From now on, I will call my dad's side of the family, my family. There is no need to prove to anyone that I carry generations of Mexican heritage within me. Anzaldua taught me so.